Sometimes when we write into the absolutely ordinary we find some surprises.
One of the prompts I gave at the last Writing the Flood prompt was to make a list of very common household items, and then I read the poem “Towels.” We let an item from our list choose us (my list included: toothbrush, towels, old shoes, coffee cup, pillow, tea kettle, bird feeder…) and then we wrote for about 10 minutes. This is what came for me:
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Tagged ordinary wisdom, workshop write, writing prompt
This is what I want to say: It won’t end. You won’t get fixed. You won’t reach a place where you name is Healed and incest doesn’t feed you breakfast anymore. The people who tell you You’ll get over it don’t know what they’re talking about, because they live in their own closed cage of denial. You have been transformed. You are not the same as you were Before. And you will never not also be who you were Before — but it may be some years before these layerings of yourselves can sit in the same room with you and have coffee in the morning. There is no such thing as getting over it. There is the business of living through. There is learning to breathe again, there is learning you are worthy of the air you breathe, there is having to breathe when you know you are not worthy. There is you, just breathing. You will have years called Night and years called Drunk and years called Weep and years called Frozen and years called Broken and Fuck. You look at this and think you can’t bear so many years of pain — but what’s true is that all those years are also called Freedom.
You will not always be in pain. Your heart will harden and soften at the same time. You will forget all the names you ever had, you will climb into a skin so different from the one you were fucked into that not even your mother — especially not your mother — will be able to recognize you. This may or may not be a cocoon. It might just actually be the true face of your new eyes. Every stage of healing is a phase, like this breath you are taking is a phase, like this heartbeat is a phase, like a single kiss is a phase is an instant an instantiation of your personhood. Phase means nothing except you are still alive. Ignore them when they tell you that whatever you’re experiencing now is just a phase. Ignore their relief, if it comes, when you enter a different phase. They do not sing with all the tendons of your body and they can’t speak the truth of your soul. Sit with the people who can hold your surfaces and your undersides.
One day you will say yes to your skin, yes to sex, yes to the feel of your body alive and inhabitable. The next day you will wrench up with No again. There will be years like this. There will be two yes hours in a row. There will be days when you don’t say his name, nights when the dreams in which you cannot move begin to stretch and taffy in your psyche, one day inside you will take the knife he brandishes and turn it on him. That will be a good day.
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Tagged incest survivor, radical healing, survivorluv, workshop write, write whole
This is a new day. My body is sleepy, thick with desire for the covers. The candle blossoms new color into the dark room, and I am here with these early words. Fit me into the couch cushions, cover me with my mother-knitted afghan, hand me my tea cup and my novel. What do these words want from me today? What do your words want from you?
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I have two survivors workshops going right now, one in person (Write Whole) and one online. Last night was the third meeting of the spring Write Whole session, and got to be amazed at how deep the writing went, and how fast. We wrote hard about memory and grief, and in-between writes, we talked and connected and laughed. We wrote anguish and struggle last night, and after the workshop was over, I felt energized, lighter, and so grateful. It was a big one last night.
Sometimes people say, when I share with them about the work that I do, “Oh, that must be so hard.” I don’t know how to convey to them how much it’s not hard. How grateful I am every time I’m in the presence of a story that was never supposed to be told, how I appreciate the effort and risk involved in sharing brand new words, how honored I am to get to be in circle, over and over, with writers who are willing to language what we are trained never to be able to say. That’s not hard, I want to tell people; that’s a gift! Continue reading
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Tagged Affirmation (Assata Shakur), online workshops, survivors writing workshop, workshop write, write whole, writing prompt
this body finds comfort out amid the trees — in the old oak groves, walking through the scent of bay or eucalyptus…
Hello and good morning! It’s late-ish for the blog post; I did my morning pages offline today, longhand in the notebook, then breakfasted and readied for a working day of writing. I notice, when I’m working at home, it’s easier for me to take myself seriously if I make like I’m actually going to work when I head into the little writing office–change out of pajamas, for instance; shower; eat breakfast away from the computer. These steps help me transition out of home mind into work mode; this is a new practice for me. I’ll let you know how it progresses.
I have a more today from FemmeCon 2012, a write from the Body Empathy workshop that Alex Cafarelli and I co-facilitated on the first morning of the conference. Our introductory writing prompt (after some movement and improv exercises to get to know one another and playfully ease into our bodies!) had to do with where we are, or aren’t, comfortable in our bodies.
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Tagged comfort, femme2012, prompts, radical self care!, trauma aftermath, workshop write
Good morning good morning out there — how is your today so far?
(Sometimes when I start these posts, I hear (of course I do) the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” (hello hello is there anybody in there), even though numb isn’t (almost) ever how I’d describe myself here at the writing desk, during this morning time…
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Good morning good morning — how is Tuesday feeling so far? Here the candles are low, flickering and sputtering hard, working hard for the last interweavings of oxygen and wax before losing all fuel.
The tea today is Moroccan mint – nettle/dandelion – cardamom – anise. Bitter with sweet undertones; a good wake-up tea.
We had a fantastic first meeting of the Fall ’11 Write Whole group last night — such powerful writers. I’m excited and grateful to be working with them! I woke up this morning and spent the first part of my writing time doing some reflective writing about the group — I’ve wanted to start a reflective practice after each workshop meeting for more than a year now, so it feels good to have begun that.
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Tagged prompts, reflective writing, workshop write, write whole
Hello Tuesday!
These posts have gotten a bit more sporadic! I’m sorry for that — I’m making some changes in my morning schedule which affects blog-writing time.
I shared this yesterday in the Writing Ourselves Whole newsletter: “Now that the workshops are on break, I’m doing a lot of work on a handful of longer writing projects (not least of which is preparing for the Tomales Bay Workshops), because I’m ready to be a Published Author with a Book. Will you keep some good thoughts for me as I work to shift my own and the puppy’s schedules so that I can rise between 4 and 4:3oam to write for a couple hours before the official work-day begins?”
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Tagged family, prompts, trauma aftermath, workshop write
The prompt was an orange pill bottle — take 10 minutes with the idea of that today, if you like, or with the image over to the left — what does it bring up for you?
Here was my write:
This is my aftermath, this writing. These are my pills — daily tea of nettle or dandelion, skullcap, tulsi, anise and cardamom; oatmeal with yogurt and fruit and nuts; daily pages; dog walks; daily squares of dark chocolate; tears; phone messages to a best friend across the country; a view of the water, blue-to-steel-grey ocean waves; time with a book; saying hello and goodmorning to deer or fox or scrubjays —
Here is the workshop write that I said (last week) that I’d share —
remember, the prompt was: “What would you do differently if you knew you only had the rest of your life to live?” (from “Mortality,” Marcia Davis-Cannon).
Did you write in response to this prompt?
Good morning, all!
I’m a bit scattered today — the pup and I were up early, rushing around, getting ready for an appointment that it turns out wasn’t this morning, is scheduled for next Thursday. Now my energy is all twisted up, churned, and I’m trying to get back in focus. Do you ever have mornings like this?
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